Alas, most people don’t give it a chance. They take one look at what is takes to install a program like The Gimp on OS X and think “Well, the price is nice but installing all that? No way.” Even if they do go to the trouble of installing an app that doesn’t require OS X, then they have to worry about keeping it updated and other app-management tasks. It all seems like too much. Why isn’t there some easy way to install new programs and look for updates? Also, if all this software that doesn’t run natively on your Mac is so great, why hasn’t someone made it easier to use? Turns out people have noticed that problem and have been working on solutions. While there’s more than one program that aims to make nonnative apps run on the Mac more easily, Homebrew is a great one to start with.
Prepare for Homebrew One of the neat things about Homebrew is that it takes care of dependencies for you. For example, program X might rely on program Y and program Z, so to install program X, you have to realize that they rely on the other two programs and install those, too. It can be a bit of a headache, and that’s a great reason to use Homebrew. In this example we’ll be using ImageMagick, which has dozens of dependencies. You could chase all of them down by hand if you wanted to, but Homebrew will do all that for you. Neat! Another great reason to install Homebrew? It has minimal dependencies. All you need is a copy of Xcode (free from the Mac App Store) and the Command Line Tools extension. Download Xcode (a 3.5+ GB download) from the Mac App Store for free. Once you’ve done that, launch the application, agree to its terms, and then choose Xcode→Preferences. In the Preferences window, click the Downloads tab, and then click the Install button next to Command Line Tools (where the status bar is in Figure 6-6). You’ll be asked to authenticate, and once you do, the download will begin.
Figure 6-6. Xcode alone isn’t sufficient—you need the Command Line Tools, too. These used to be a standard part of the Xcode download, but now you get to jump through an extra hoop to get them.
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MAC HACKS